Slowish movie week for me, which is just fine: I’m saving up my energy for New York Comic Con this weekend, and then the Tribeca Film Festival starts next week, so I’m gonna be superbusy.
I can’t help but be wary of Baby Mama [opens wide April 25], which is about the infertile Tina Fey employing Amy Poehler as a surrogate mother. It’s not the suibject matter that puts me on alert but that fact that it’s a man who has written and directed this one. And not just any man, but Michael McCullers, a first-time director whose previous scripts don’t show any particularly insight into, you know, women: it’s a lot of Austin Powers and a little of stuff like Thunderbirds. Then again, not understanding women hasn’t stopped men writing about them for forever.
And then — oh goodie! — there’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall [opens wide April 18]. Because I just can’t get enough of postadolescent misogyny masquerading as juvenile idiocy.
Finally for this week, I will try, for the third time, to see the British coming-of-age movie-geek movie Son of Rambow [opens limited May 2]. Geez, for all the bad luck I’ve had in trying to get to this one, it had better be great.
(Technorati tags: Baby Mama, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Son of Rambow)
Wait ’til you see Russell Brand, who plays the new rock-star boyfriend in Sarah Marshall. He’s easily the least funny man in Britain, and speaking as a Brit I know that there’s a lot of competition there.
Usually when British comedians go over to the States we all worry that they might forget their British fanbase. In Brand’s case, we hope he will.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s because I have a Veronica Mars hang over and thus love all things Kristin Belle or what…but ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ was the first movie I enjoyed from the ‘Knocked Up/Superbad’ crew (unless we are counting ’40 Year Old Virgin’…did they do that one?)
There was occasional juvenile nonsense…but it was outweighed by quite a lot of funny material, and Kunis was great in it.
Oh, yeah, I guess I should confess I saw an early release version that they screened in my area…so yeah, the audience was very receptive, probably didn’t hurt my impression of the movie.